Patrick Says

Yesterday, I wrote about kid parties. Specifically, I wrote about the drop-off versus the stay. Normally, if I’m not hosting it, I like the drop-off party and I think a lot of parents do. But I never figured that the hosting parent would like the drop-off party all that much because of the ratio. But today, while dropping off The Oldest, I rethought that and came to the conclusion that, yes, it could be advantageous to host a drop-off party.

One aspect that is favorable for the host is that the costs are less. Instead of feeding and providing beverages for adults and kids, you just have kids, leaving you more money for Lipofuze or Wii games or whatever. The other advantage is control. When it’s just you and all the kids, you don’t have to worry about being judged by other parents. The kids are probably more disciplined because they have one authority figure instead of multiple adults.

Regardless, The Oldest’s party next week is still a stay party. I can handle that many kids. I can barely handle the two I have.

This weekend, The Oldest will be celebrating the two-party system: one on Saturday and one on Sunday.

Seriously, birthday parties as an adult are a completely different experience than as a kid. You end up with two kinds of parties: the drop-off and the stay. Parents love the drop-off party. You just arrive, drop the kid off and then, you get FREE TIME! The stay party requires more preparation on the parents part. You have to bring something to pass the time. At the party last week, one parent had a Nintendo DSi XL. I had my smartphone. Some parents talked, maybe discussing eye wrinkle cream or some sports team.

I’ve learned this week. I’m bringing The Oldest’s DSi.

I’ve got a decent refund coming this year from taxes. And lately, I’ve had gadget fever. It’s what I call it when I feel the need to have some new technology toy. I think the thing that brought it on this time was the iPad. Now, it’s no big secret that I am not an Apple fan. But this device looks pretty neat. Except that it’s severely overpriced (like all Apple products).

But like cheap adipex, when I want something, I want it.

However, I was able to talk myself out of the iPad. It’s just too much money for what I think is an underpowered netbook. So, I started looking at every other tech device on the market to satisfy the fever. And as I always do, I flip-flopped between them all. At one point in the last week, I have considered all of the following: the Apple iPod Touch, the Nexus One, the Nintendo DSi XL and the Droid.

Ultimately, I decided that for what I wanted the device to do, the Touch was my best choice. So, in preparation, I downloaded and installed iTunes. OMFG. I forgot why I hated this program so much a couple years back. Ugh. First, it crashed on first run. Normally, this wouldn’t be a big deal, but I’m already an Apple-hater looking for an excuse. Secondly, it created multiple entries of tracks in my mp3 libarry that I KNEW I only had one copy of. Thirdly, I couldn’t seem to figure out how to delete tracks from the hard drive directly in iTunes. I had to delete track and then go find it on the hard drive and remove it. I needed better access.

Finally, I saw some news that Dell is releasing an iPad-clone this summer called the Streak. I think I’ll wait for that maybe.

So, in the car ride home from Grandma’s tonight, me and the boys are listening to the radio. We’re scanning channels just looking for something they like, passing stuff like talk radio and commericals for walk in bathtubs. We hit ‘Black’ by Pearl Jam and the kids are all, ‘NO! Not this song!’ So I let it go by. The next station is playing Nickelback. From the back, I hear, ‘Yes! This song!’

My head starts smoking. I yelled at the top of my lungs (and I’m not even kidding), ‘THERE IS NO WAY WE ARE PASSING A PEARL JAM SONG TO LISTEN TO NICKELBACK. OVER MY DEAD BODY! NO WAY! NO HOW!’ I’m sorry, boys, but sometimes you are just not going to win. This is one of those times.

For those of you who are ‘not from around here’, Schnucks is a large grocery chain here in the metro Saint Louis area. I was picking up a couple things and passed by this computerized recipe guide. Apparently, they run Windows.